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[NOTE: I have recently posted a number of book reviews in adjoining
disciplines of interest to historians of American economics--the following
continues that trend. These reviews come from the H-Net system. If
subscribers know of similar on-line reviews relevant to historians of
European, Asian, Australian, and African economics, feel free to post
them, or to let me know about the sources.--RBE]
H-NET BOOK REVIEW
Published by [log in to unmask] (June, 1998)
Steven J. Diner. _A Very Different Age: Americans of the Progressive
Era_. New York: Hill and Wang, 1998. xii + 320 pp. Notes and
bibliographical essay. $25.00 (cloth), ISBN 0-8090-2553-1.
Reviewed for H-Pol by William R. Childs <[log in to unmask]>, Ohio
State University
Steven J. Diner has produced a very useful synthesis of social and
political-economic history of the Progressive Era. _A Very Different Age_
reminded me of Alan Brinkley's important 1984 article on the problems
encountered in writing modern American history.[1] Diner meets many, if
not all, of the challenges of writing synthesis that Brinkley presented,
and most importantly, he has written a book which can be used profitably
in upper-division undergraduate courses and in graduate-level reading
courses. (Graduate students will benefit from the excellent
Bibliographical Essay to the extent that it chronicles the best social
history of the last two decades, along with many of the classics of
progressive era historiography.)
Diner believes that the current state of progressive era historiography
presents an incomplete picture of the U.S. between 1890 and 1920, focused
as it has been on corporations, government, and reform movements.
Highlighting progressive reformers, corporate dominance, and the profusion
of bureaucratic values omits considerations of other Americans, which
recent social historians have analyzed in specialized studies, but which
they have rarely synthesized into the larger framework. To rectify this
incompleteness, Diner attempts to "combine political, institutional, and
social history" (p. 8). He focuses on "groups," although he recognizes
that members of one group often belonged to another (women, particularly
are highlighted in different groups).
He is interested in--and this is what makes this book significant for
H-Pol readers--"how Americans sought to control their lives and their
government during the transformation of America" (p. 9). The book's title
is taken from a quotation of Woodrow Wilson's in 1912 in which he
described how different the times were from earlier years. The manner of
doing business had changed how the individual interacted within all of
society, making "most men...the servants of the corporations" (p. xi).
As Diner illustrates throughout, however, the role of "servants of the
corporations" was not accepted by most Americans. Thus, corporate
capitalists, while ultimately comprising the most powerful group because
they set the terms of the contest for control (p. 264), were under siege
not only from reformers and government institutions, but also from
individual Americans during the progressive era. Many Americans actively
struggled to attain economic security, personal autonomy, and social
status (three themes that anchor the book). Thus, individuals and groups
were not victims of the very different age, but rather active agents
attempting to respond to a changing way of life. While Diner does not
eschew organized movements against corporate capitalism (indeed, he
exposes the irony of these groups later in the book), he emphasizes much
more than any other synthesis of the progressive era Americans' informal
and unorganized attempts to gain control over their lives: "politics and
reform did not dominate most Americans' lives. The vast majority had to
cope first and foremost with the social and economic consequences wrought
by industrialism and corporate capitalism" (p. 29).
In nine chapters, Diner takes the reader from the emergence of corporate
capitalism in the late nineteenth century to the first World War, tying
together the narrative with the theme of "competition for control." In
the first chapter, "Owners, Managers, and Corporate Capitalism," Diner
presents the most clear and succinct overview of the rise of corporate
capitalism I have ever read (my sub-specialty is business history). He
then proceeds in the next five chapters to show how industrial workers,
immigrants, rural citizens, African-Americans, and white-collar workers
resisted and accommodated the values of corporate capitalism. In each
case, he takes care to include the contributions of women within these
groups.
In Chapter 7, he shows how the emergence of professionalism shaped many of
the groups, each "divided by social origin, ideology, and sex" through
competition for control of "economic rewards, social status, and autonomy,
producing losers as well as winners" (p. 199). In the penultimate chapter,
"The Progressive Discourse in American Politics," Diner surveys the older
view of progressivism and shows that while progressive reformers
delineated the parameters of the political debate, they were not all that
successful in achieving their preferred outcomes.
The final chapter, "The Great War and the Competition for Control," brings
together the various threads of the previous chapters to conclude that the
progressive reformers that progressive era historians have emphasized
never understood what Diner has developed in the rest of his book, that
most other Americans were not interested in the social engineering
promoted by elite reformers and agents of the state, but rather in
attaining social and economic autonomy for themselves. Probably many of
us who have struggled with teaching and writing about the Progressive Era
have recognized this point, but Diner has clearly made the argument for us
in this well-written synthesis.
For the most part, Diner skillfully combines the recent emphasis on social
history with the older emphasis on business, politics, and reform. There
are a few caveats, however, that must be included in this otherwise
supportive review! Although he includes information on North and South in
the chapters on African-Americans and rural Americans, Diner does not
develop the theme of regional differences, which Brinkley raised in his
1984 article and which should include the west. Nor does Diner engage
directly the various historiographical issues we historians have grappled
with, although the reader can infer them from the narrative and
bibliographical essay. The final chapter, on World War I, is not as
satisfying as it could have been: while Diner correctly reveals the
ironies of progressive reformers' programs (many progressives, although
not all, never understood that Americans did not want social engineering)
and while in places he suggests connections to the current political
situation, he does not suggest how Americans' quest for economic security,
autonomy, and social status continued throughout the twentieth century
after this transformative period. Following from his argument, one could
imply that what had been informal resistance before World War I more and
more had to become formal, organized interest group politics afterwards,
if success was to be achieved.
One of the book jacket blurbs asserts that Diner has redefined the
progressive era in _A Very Different Age_. He has done no such thing.
What he has done--and this is more important than another
"redefinition"--is to synthesize what we have learned from social
historians over the last quarter century with an acute analysis of the
ironies of progressive reform movements.
Note
[1]. Alan Brinkley, "Writing the History of Contemporary America:
Dilemmas and Challenges," _Daedalus_, (Summer 1984), 121-141.
Copyright 1998 by H-Net, all rights reserved. This work
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